I Have Great Respect For

Among Other Things, I'm Thinking "i'm A Child Of God." That's Amazing. And "i'm Not Only A Child Of God, But God Loves Me." The Hardest Part For Me Is To Realize That While God Loves Me, And I Am A Child Of God, I Have To See The Bigot And The Brute And The Rapist, And Whether He Or She Knows It Or Not, I Have To Know That That Person Is A Child Of God. That Is Part Of The Responsibility - And It's Hard.

I Have Risked Everything To Tell The Truth. Tell The Truth

...we May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. That Sounds Goody Two-shoes, I Know, But I Believe That A Diamond Is The Result Of Extreme Pressure And Time. Less Time Is Crystal. Less Than That Is Coal. Less Than That Is Fossilized Leaves. Less Than That It's Just Plain Dirt. In All My Work, In The Movies I Write, The Lyrics The Poetry, The Prose, The Essays, I Am Saying That We May Encounter Many Defeats - Maybe It's Imperative That We Encounter The Defeats - But We Are Much Stronger Than We Appear To Be And Maybe Much Better Than We Allow Ourselves To Be.

All Of Us Knows, Not What Is Expedient, Not What Is Going To Make Us Popular, Not What The Policy Is, Or The Company Policy - But In Truth Each Of Us Knows What Is The Right Thing To Do. And That's How I Am Guided.

Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike. Whether In Paris, Texas, Or Paris, France, We All Want To Have Good Jobs Where We Are Needed And Respected And Paid Just A Little More Than We Deserve. We Want Healthy Children, Safe Streets, To Be Loved And Have The Unmitigated Gall To Accept Love. If We Are Religious, We Want A Place To Perpetuate God. If Not, We Want A Good Lecture Every Once In A While. And Everyone Wants Someplace To Party On Saturday Nights.